Tuesday, August 3, 2010

National Poll Time!

It's time for our monthly national poll this week which means we're taking suggestions on two things:

1) Who should be the 'bonus' Republican we test against Barack Obama in addition to the standards of Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and Newt Gingrich. We'll take your nominations for the next 24 hours or so and then put them to a vote. I'm open to anyone except Ron Paul and Jan Brewer, who we looked at the last two months.

2) And as always would love suggestions for creative questions that everyone else might not be asking.

How about just 4 candidates and forget the bonus? It's like polling 5 Democrats including Barack and Hillary. Most candidates , like Jeb Bush, have said they are NOT interested. So, see what the 4 way split is for the majors

There's not really anyone else that has enough name recognition to be worth testing. Most people have no idea who Mitch Daniels is or John Thune is. I think it'd be interesting to test Obama vs. McCain in 2012. Obviously McCain won't run, but it might be interesting to see how the results compare to 2008's actual results.

1) Scott Brown: He seems to strike me as someone who represents the prototypical Republican "moderate," and I think it would be intriguing to see how well he does in comparison to more conservative options. I don't think he would win a GOP primary (and probably won't even run) but just seeing how he fares against Obama would be interesting.

2) Marco Rubio: Again, probably not someone who will run at least until 2016, but he already has a pretty robust national profile and also brings in the dynamic of having a Hispanic Conservative Republican. It would be interesting to see whether Hispanics stay home or support one of their own. AN alternative to him is Brian Sandoval

3) John Thune: Thune has always struck me as your typical "generic Republican," having name recognition and charisma but not the unique and quirky profile of a Palin or a Romney. I'd like to see how removing the personalities associated with other Republicans would make the GOP fare against Obama

4) Haley Barbour: Now that Sanford has been toasted, Jindal stopped showing interest, Pawlenty is gone after 2010, and Perry has done off the deepend, Barbour appears to be the Republican that will have the immediate executive experience in 2012

I'd like to see what kind of numbers Barack Obama gets. Yes, in the Republican primary. It would be an interesting benchmark of likely crossover voters - and if he gets more than a few percent, it would be particularly amusing to see which Republican potential candidates can't even beat President Obama in their own party's primary.

For a question that isn't being asked, how about a perceptions question? "Do you believe that illegal immigration is rising, falling, or staying about the same? How about crime related to illegal immigration?" Statistics show that both of those figures have been declining, but it would be interesting to see what people believe is the case (I would bet dollars to donuts that Republicans would erroneously believe that it was getting worse, and by large margins).

You should ask a question about the federal court intervention in the DOMA case. It would also be interesting to see if people think same sex marriages from other states should be recognized in their state (as opposed to the generic same-sex marriage question that is usually asked).

Perhaps instead of asking about an individual Republican candidate with close to zero name recognition, you could poll Obama against a generic Republican candidate. A lot of the other 2012 polling has shown generic Republican polling much better against Obama than actual Republican candidates. I wonder if your polling would show the same thing. It might be more interesting than another poll showing a low name-rec. Republican down in the 30s against Obama.

Tom This is a classic exercise in " deflection." To add folks in a poll who have steadfastly said , over and over again, that they do not intend to run, into a poll of folks who probably do intend to run, serves the singular purpose of supporting a conclusion that there is no " clear leader " I you had 1 candidate, there would be a clear leader. If you have 6 or 7 or eight, many of whom are obviously NOT CANDIDATES, you will increasingly NOT have a clear leader....which serves somebody's objectives. Not sure who.